Events are back, baby!

It’s time to say it; experiential marketing has returned. It’s totally OK to cheer!

Now although things will never truly be back to what we once considered “normal” before the pandemic hit, we’re certainly getting close to something like it. And one way that can be seen in full force is that events have returned. 

Those heady days of brands putting on fun and engaging ways for their advocates and fans to interact with them are back. Consumers are loving it. Ad agencies and production companies are feeling energized. And nonprofit storytelling organization The Moth is taking full advantage of the good news. 

If you don’t know The Moth (side note, you should get to that ASAP), it’s an organization that celebrates and encourages people all over the world, from all walks of life, to tell their true, personal stories. From astronauts and students to mechanics and Nobel laureates, The Moth helps people share their human experiences through live and virtual shows, a podcast, radio show, and workshops globally. 

So in 2022, its six-city Pop-Up Porch tour of Tulsa, Dallas, Jackson, New Orleans, Birmingham, and Atlanta provided the ideal opportunity to take the show on the road. And the custom built tiny home Pop-Up Porch was the perfect and inviting setting for people to feel comfortable to learn how to craft and share their own stories - some of which were recorded directly to The Moth’s story archive.

The problem: Every city stop needed a quick turn recap of the event.

That was what was facing The Moth’s organizers. Yes, this was going to be an amazing event filled with incredible characters and personalities. But how was this going to be executed across six cities? In lightning-fast time? All while achieving maximum impact from their event video budget?

The solution was User-Generated Content (UGC) and Cinebody, which turned a weakness - quick turnarounds, no dedicated videographers, and multiple locations (a logistical nightmare in anyone’s books) - into a huge strength. 

The plan was as simple as executing it turned out to be. By using two of The Moth’s own staff at each city stop to be the actual dedicated iPhone videographers, all the sights and sounds of the Pop-Up Porch experience could be captured without a production crew being necessary. And as all the footage is instantly uploaded to the cloud, the Cinebody team could dive right into editing the footage remotely. 

“Cinebody delivered exactly what we hoped for,” said Jennifer Birminham, Managing Director of Programs at The Moth. “We had realtime videos that we could push out on our social media and get people excited about our next step on the tour before we even got to the next step. Yep, all of our expectations were absolutely met.”

The results proved that low-budget doesn’t mean low engagement.

You can see the results of these rapid-fire turnaround videos below, which were distributed to eagerly-awaiting fans, and prospective new advocates of The Moth, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. And because company morale and education is just as important, they were also shared internally for The Moth employees who couldn’t make the tours in Tulsa, Dallas, Jackson, New Orleans, Birmingham, and Atlanta. (There’s also a killer Tour Recap video.)

And remember, all of this was done on a nonprofit event video budget, with even tighter deadlines, and fully capitalized on the many benefits of remote video production that include:

• Automatic and instant footage uploads to the cloud

• Remote editing for super-fast turns

• A dedicated Cinebody producer helping to organize the shot list & onboard select filmers

• A hyper-streamlined process to execute videos for launch within 36-48 hours of filming completing
  
  

“It was fantastic to work with Cinebody and the team to shoot all of the content,” said Brandon Grant, Director of Marketing at The Moth. “They helped us create all of our visions and our storyboards, and they were real partners with us on the day-to-day of getting these videos made in such a tight frame between city to city.”

That symbiotic partnership, coupled with an enthusiasm by both the Cinebody team and the great folks at The Moth, were key to making this work so well. The videos also helped The Moth win the Best Mobile Tour / Roadshow award at the 2023 BizBash Event Experience Awards.  And it’s starting a trend that will only continue to grow in strength as events such as iProspect make game-changing video strategy plays. 

So, let’s keep on celebrating the return of events, while embracing the future of how to record and share them.